


Safely Home

by bluflamingo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Barton's Farm, Farmhouse of Love, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 07:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12127995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Post-Civil War, Steve and Bucky talk Tony Stark, going back to New York, and a future where Steve's an Avenger and Bucky's with Clint.





	Safely Home

Safely Home

"What do you mean, you're not coming with us?"

It wasn't like Bucky expected Steve not to hear the news, but he'd maybe hoped for a little more than… great, thirty-two minutes… before Steve came slamming back into his little suite of rooms in the medical center.

Wakanda, or at least the part after Bucky got back out of cryo again, had been weirdly good for Bucky – sun, good food, time to rest, access to really good medical care; all the things he'd never really had even in Brooklyn. All the things they'd all needed, after the fight and the Raft; but Steve was Steve, and just being safe wasn't enough. Not unless they were free, all of them, and that wasn't something Steve had been able to bargain for from Wakanda.

Those were the kinds of battles Steve wasn't made for – the kind you fought behind closed doors, in a suit and tie, without the shield he'd dropped in that frozen hell in Siberia. The strain of it showed, even after nearly two weeks back in Wakanda: shadows under his eyes, the tense line of his shoulders, the way he simultaneously held back and leaned in towards Bucky, one hand still on the doorframe, clenched so tight his knuckles were white.

"I'm not coming back to New York with the rest of you," Bucky said, calm as he could manage. He'd been waiting for this, curled in the sun spot under the bedroom window with a Wakandan children's book and the dictionary app on his tablet. He'd been waiting, but even knowing how Steve would react, even knowing it was the right decision, he didn't want to do it. Didn't feel ready. 

"Bucky…"

"They're not all going," Bucky said, before Steve could say they were. Wanda was (Bucky thought it was a terrible idea, but apparently Natasha was in New York, and where she went, Wanda wanted to go too), and Sam, now that he'd been officially pardoned, and Scott because New York made as good a base as any for the life he was trying to rebuild. T'Challa had a country to run, so he wasn't going anywhere, but Stark and Rhodes and Vision were there already, or at least, they were out at the Avengers facility, so near enough to make no difference.

And Steve, of course – Steve went with the team, with the fight that needed to be fought, and everything they'd heard said that was in New York, or would be soon.

"You mean Clint's not going," Steve said softly.

"I mean I'm not going." Clint wasn't going – was heading back to the farmhouse and had offered to take Bucky, if he wanted to go – but even if Clint had been going back to New York, Bucky sure as hell wouldn't have been.

He wasn't going even though _Steve_ was; he and Clint might have spent the last few weeks working their way into something more than friends, but nothing was going to pull him somewhere if Steve couldn't.

"Bucky…" Steve trailed off into silence and after a moment came over to Bucky's sun spot, leaning his back against the wall and resting his forearms on his knees. Bucky twisted around and leaned into Steve, head on his shoulder.

"You look tired," he offered into the quiet. Steve just huffed out the kind of bitter laugh Bucky'd hated even before the war, and kept his head down.

It was peaceful, in a way. With the window open, Bucky could smell the greenery that surrounded the medical center, and hear an occasional snatch of Wakandan as someone passed by. He wasn't good enough at the language to even pick out the words he did know, but the rhythm of it had gotten to be familiar; to sound like safety, or as close as he could get these days.

How much easier would it be if they all just stayed?

They couldn't, of course; T'Challa's government weren't willing to offer an extended leave to remain for any of them, not with the Wakandan deaths still hanging over them, and the geo-political hot potato that the Avengers, even as individuals, made up. Bucky, maybe, could have stayed – no-one had explicitly offered, but a couple of people at the med center had strongly implied that he could be useful, a sort of participant researcher into his own brain damage and the ways that they could use what they'd learned on him to treat others.

It sounded like the sort of thing he wouldn't have even known to dream about, back in Brooklyn, but there was Steve, the one person Bucky never wanted to have to give up again.

"Why won't you come to New York?" Steve asked finally, soft enough that Bucky could have pretended not to hear it. 

"I don't want to fight," Bucky said, which Steve already knew. They'd gone around on that one more than once – that Bucky wouldn't have to, even if he was in New York with the others, that Bucky knew he'd end up fighting if he was there – and it wasn't an argument he was keen to repeat. "I'd never feel safe there."

The silence that followed was very, very loud, filled with the sound of the words that naturally followed: _I've never really felt safe._

Not in Brooklyn, afraid of losing Steve; not in the war, terrified and desperate to leave, even after Steve saved him; not with Hydra, when he didn't know better; not on the run, always looking over his shoulder and waiting for it all to go to hell. Not even in Wakanda, not really. Not when he'd always known there was a count-down running on that time, that it couldn't go on forever and he had no idea what came next.

"I'd never let anything happen to you," Steve said, fierce as a sacred vow. Some tiny, angry part of Bucky wanted to point at his left shoulder, the rubber cap that covered where his arm used to be, the arm that Hydra had grafted onto him.

But it was only a tiny part, and easily quieted, and anyway, that way led the discussion Bucky did not want to have, but knew was coming anyway.

"You can't protect me from everything," Bucky said, as gently as he could manage. "And even if you could, there are some ways of doing it that I wouldn't ever want."

Like siding with him over the Avengers, and dropping the shield. Like running solo into a Hydra stronghold, even though Bucky was probably already dead.

Like jumping off a train after him, falling to what should have been certain deaths in the snow cold of the Alps. Because Bucky knew that, if Steve had known then what he knew now, that’s what would have happened, and the only thing worse than a world in which he'd been Hydra's prisoner for seventy years was a world in which Steve had been there too.

"I would. Bucky, I'd do anything to protect you."

"Then let me do this, without a fight. Please, Stevie."

Just for a moment, Bucky thought Steve would. All this time, though, he really did know better.

"If it's about Stark…" Bucky felt Steve looking at him, took his own turn at keeping his head down. "He's not angry any more. Not at you."

Bucky was glad for the way his hand was hidden by the curve of their bodies, the way it concealed the only visible sign that he was shaking. "What if I'm still angry at him?"

He could feel how much Steve hadn't expected that, the surprise of it hitting him hard enough that he needed a minute to figure out what to say next.

Bucky'd told himself that he'd wait, let Steve talk; he'd never expected it to be so hard to put into practice.

"It wasn't about you," Steve said eventually, sounding like he was picking the words very carefully. "I should have told him about his parents, not let him find out like that. He doesn't – he's not good with surprises, especially bad ones."

Bucky closed his eyes. Two women conversing in Wakandan as they passed the window; the smell of the greenery surrounding the med center; the solid warmth of Steve against him. Still safe. "He tried to kill me. He tried to kill you. He lasered my arm off, while I could still feel it." Steve's whole body jerked at that, like he'd forgotten, or maybe hadn't expected Bucky to admit it. "If Sam hadn't landed first, he'd have shot Sam right out of the sky, just because Sam dodged when Vision tried to shoot him down and Rhodes got hit instead."

Clint had told him that, and Bucky was one hundred percent sure that Steve either didn't know it had happened, or didn't know that Bucky knew about it.

"He lashes out when he's hurt," Bucky said, because if he didn't say it now, he never would. "And I don't even remember every terrible thing I've ever done. I don't have anything else left that I'm willing to lose."

"He wouldn't –" Steve started, barely sounding like he believed himself, and every sick, shaking, terrified part of Bucky reared up despite that, shoving him away from Steve to slam hard into the bed frame, one hand raised half in self-defence and half just to make Steve see the tremors running through him.

"He signed the Accords." Bucky's voice was shaking as bad as his hand, and he had a horrible feeling he was going to start crying, but the words weren't a part of him, not really. "He didn't even read them well enough to know they included an underwater prison with no trial. Or he did and he just figured it would work out somehow. He brought a kid into a fight between the kinds of people he thought needed a United Nations accord to make safe, and then he let them get taken away and locked up. Even Wanda. Even Sam. And then he did exactly what he wanted the Accords to stop you all being able to do, except he gets to go back to New York and live his life while we're all turned into international fugitives." Bucky took a sharp, unsteady breath. "He would. If something happened, whatever you think he wouldn't do, he would, and I killed his parents. If he could let Wanda get locked up, whatever you think he wouldn't do, he wouldn't hesitate about doing it to me."

Steve, when Bucky managed to focus through the way his vision was swimming, was looking at Bucky's shoulder, the space where he should have had an arm, even if it had come from Hydra and been mostly there to make him a more efficient killing machine.

"I don't want to go back," Bucky managed, his voice fading out to almost nothing. "Please, Steve, don't make me."

"Bucky," Steve said, his own voice cracking like his heart was breaking. He didn't say anything else, just caught Bucky's right shoulder and pulled him into a crushing, tight hug; the kind that made Bucky believe, even if it was just for that moment, that they'd work it all out in the end.

*

"I didn't know Tony bothered you that much," Steve said, when they'd taken some deep breaths and drunk a glass of water between them. They'd settled back in Bucky's sunspot, warmth seeping into their skin, easing out some of the stress and tension. "You never said."

"I know." Steve had been so pleased when Stark wrote him back, Bucky hadn't had the heart to spoil that, even knowing that it would have to come out eventually. In the back of his own mind, he'd maybe even hoped that things would change, so that when it came time to decide, he'd be able to say okay and go with Steve.

"I used to… before I knew you were alive, I used to think about how well the two of you would have gotten along. Me and him, we always clashed, but you and him…"

Bucky didn't let himself move, not even a twitch. Next to him, Steve was staring at nothing, caught in a memory Bucky could easily guess at – Bucky and Howard had been friends, after a fashion, or at least Howard hadn't treated him like an idiot the couple of times Bucky'd wound up in his lab. What he'd seen of Tony Stark said that he and Howard hadn't been much alike, but Steve probably wasn't wrong that he and Bucky would have gotten along well.

If Bucky hadn't killed his parents. If Tony hadn't found out about it the way he had.

If Bucky didn't feel sick at the mere thought of being in the same city as the man, didn't want to grab Steve and physically stop him from going back. 

"I'm glad the two of you are patching things up," he said, before Steve could go too far down the rabbit hole of memories. That, at least, was true, and something he could give to Steve. 

"It's going to be so weird," Steve said, still staring at the blank wall, "Going back without you."

"It's not like we'll never see each other again," Bucky said, instead of reminding Steve that he didn't _have_ to go back without Bucky. Clint would have taken them both in, if Steve asked, or if he wouldn't, Steve and Bucky could have found their own place. Nearby, if Bucky'd had his way; Clint had shown him some pictures of the farm, said it was peaceful and quiet with skies for miles. Nothing like Brooklyn, but Bucky, for all that he'd been a city boy until the war, thought it sounded really nice. "It's less than a day to drive, and I bet Stark's got a helicopter or something you could borrow."

The half-formed memory bloomed a moment too late: Steve hanging onto the chopper like he could actually hold it down, that moment of looking at him and not having a clue who was looking back, barely even knowing who he was, why he had to get away, why someone would be trying to stop him.

"Or a jet," he added, too late not to draw Steve's own mind to what he was thinking about.

"I always thought it'd be you and me together." Steve looked down, but not fast enough for Bucky to miss how bright his eyes had gotten. "I thought, when we found you, it'd be like before."

"I know." Bucky reached for his hand, squeezed when Steve let him hold it. "I know this isn't how you imagined it." It wasn't how he'd imagined it; he'd wanted, desperately, to be left alone, to hide in his crappy apartment and buy his fruit and just exist in a space where he was anonymous and safe, for once. Part of him still wanted that, still thought about how easy it would be to disappear from a country farm in the dead of night, but he could feel the weight of Steve's expectations around his return, for both of them, in a way that meant he couldn’t do it.

Not that he would have, but sometimes he wished he could have the comfort of feeling like it was an option still, even if it was one he'd never take. 

"You'll always be my best friend," he said, soft enough that only super-soldier hearing would make out the words. "No matter what, Steve, you're my brother."

It didn't have the history of _the end of the line_ , but it was no less true for that, and Bucky, if he was honest, thought their friendship could maybe stand to carry a little less of the weight of history.

"Always," Steve echoed. "No matter what."

*

There was another week of waiting – of paperwork and packing and goodbyes and plane schedules and housing arrangements – and then, as though it was normal, Steve, Sam, Scott and Wanda had climbed onto one plane, Bucky and Clint had climbed onto another, and Wakanda was disappearing beneath the sunset orange clouds like it had never been there at all.

No-one was making a big deal about the others going back to New York, not least because no-one was sure how it would actually work out, in the end, but someone had leaked the flight details, and Bucky knew that would mean press and fans and probably protesters. Scott was like Clint, not really visible or known, and able to slip away; he'd promised to also spirit out Wanda, who was still one of the most controversial Avengers, from her youth to her Sokovian nationality to the way her powers couldn't be separated from her. It meant Steve and Sam taking the brunt of the attention, which Steve hated and Bucky worried about, but the truth was that most people still loved Captain America, and almost everyone loved both Sam and the Falcon (with the notable exception of the fringe right, who thought him and Colonel Rhodes being Black made them unsuitable to be super-heroes, even though they were both decorated ex-military and probably more suitable as heroes than the rest of the Avengers put together), so they could handle it, and Stark would undoubtedly do something in the next couple of days to get the attention back on himself, where he liked it.

Clint and Bucky were banking on Clint's relative anonymity and the fact that no-one outside of Wakanda knew Becky had been defrosted to get the safely through the airport. It helped that Bucky, tanned from the Wakandan sun, hair still too short after the last round of cutting open his head, and missing left arm made less noticeable through clever positioning of long sleeves, couldn't have looked less like the Winter Soldier if he'd tried. The woman checking his fake passport pretty clearly noticed the arm anyway, and just as clearly assumed he was some kind of ex-military, offering a sympathetic "Welcome home," as she handed his passport back. 

Clint, when they caught up at baggage claim, was glaring at his own passport.

"What?" Bucky asked, pressing in close against the crush of people, the whirring machines and the ever-present threat from small children pushing luggage trolleys. Clint pulled him closer with an arm around his waist like he didn't even have to think about it, and Bucky wished for long hair again, to hide his stupid, pleased smile.

"She read my name right out and she didn't even recognize it. I know it doesn’t say Occupation: Hawkeye or anything, but I was right in front of her. I helped save the world, more than once."

Bucky checked Clint's face, unable to read his tone of voice. He looked mildly irritated at worst, and when he noticed Bucky looking, he grinned.

"I'm just saying, a little fawning adoration isn't too much to ask for, is it?"

Bucky couldn't think of anything more terrifying than fawning adoration in that moment, but it wasn't like Clint was going to actually seek any out. He'd seen Clint with people who recognised him, anyway – he'd had a loyal fanbase of tiny children in Wakanda – and it was obvious that he had no better idea how to deal with them than Bucky did. "Didn't you say there's deer in the woods by the farm?"

"Yes?" Clint said, drawing the vowel out slowly.

"Deer, fawns..." Bucky waved his hand, unable to quite think of how the words for the joke went together, though that didn't turn out to matter – Clint laughed anyway.

*

The farm was, as Clint had said, really a farm in name only, the fields empty of any kind of livestock or crops - _definitely livestock_ Clint said when Bucky asked, _do you know how much work crops are?_ Someone must have been in to cut the grass while they were in Wakanda though, and the house itself looked solid and was, when Clint unlocked the door, generally free of the kind of dust and clutter that Bucky didn't know he'd been half-expecting. 

"Most of it's not like this," Clint warned him, tipping his head to the well-fitted kitchen. "There's, like, one bedroom that's fit to live in, the shower doesn't work yet, and the living room's only half-painted."

"It's still nice," Bucky assured him. With the front door still open behind them, warmth and light streamed in over hardwood floors and pale cream walls. The house felt as solid as it looked, like it could withstand anyone who came at it, and someone – presumably Clint - had ensured a wide field of view in all directions, even with the woods. They'd see anyone coming well before it would be a problem. "Thanks for letting me stay with you."

Clint shrugged, but his smile went a little forced. "Brainwashed sniper bros got to stick together, right?"

Bucky didn't know how to say that he hadn't meant it like that – or rather, he didn't have the words to explain the way he had meant it, that he really liked Clint, and was glad to be, if not living with him exactly, then at least staying with him for the indefinite future. "We're more than that," he said, managing not to sound uncertain, though not also managing to sound charming.

It must have been the right thing to say anyway, because Clint's face relaxed, and he came over to kiss Bucky, a chaste press of mouths that ended with their hands folded together, though Bucky wasn't sure when that had happened. "Yeah," Clint said softly, "I hope so."

If he closed his eyes, with the sun at his back, Bucky could almost believe they were still in Wakanda, that Steve would walk in on them, or Sam would come by looking for Steve, or Wanda for Clint. He kept his eyes resolutely open, not letting himself slide into the memory/fantasy, and after a moment, Clint said, "Come on, I'll show you the bedroom."

*

Clint had fallen asleep easy enough when they turned in just after dark, but Bucky was still on Wakandan time, or maybe just restless with the change, the unfamiliarity of the countryside where he'd never spent any time. After an hour of lying still with his eyes closed, breathing deep and regular, he'd given up on tricking his body into sleep, grabbed his discarded hoodie, and crept out of the house.

The front porch needed painting, and was missing a couple of support rails, but none of that was really visible in the dark. Bucky sat on the top step, shivering a little in the breeze, and focused on looking out at the field instead. Even with his enhanced eyesight, he couldn't see much – the dark in the countryside was _dark_ , and some long-buried part of him braced for mortar fire, just for a second. The doctors in Wakanda said those flashes from before the Winter Soldier were good, especially the ones that didn't include Steve, though there were precious few of those. Bucky wouldn't give any of them up, or wish them away; he just wished fewer of them were war and hunger and fear. 

His phone was still in the pocket of his hoodie, and when he checked it, Steve had sent a photo of the front door of a New York brownstone, then another one of two mugs on a light gray work surface, a corner of window behind them. _Home safe_ , he'd written, _Sam says hi._

Sam had also sent a message, which said less _hi_ and more _Don't think I didn't notice how you neglected to mention that Steve Rogers is a neat-freak nightmare on moving day._

They'd both been sent less than an hour ago. Bucky texted back Sam that he hadn't wanted to spoil the surprise, and sent Steve a picture of the dark field in front of him. Unlike Steve, he didn't take his photo inspiration from Instagram, or really from anything. He couldn't adjust to having a camera and a photo album in his pocket at all times, and anyway, photos were inextricably linked to Hydra and intel in a way that he wasn't sure he'd be able to shake.

 _Want to talk?_ Steve texted.

_I'm okay. It's just quiet._

Steve replied with a picture obviously taken from his open window, looking down onto the street below, still buzzing with cars and people.

 _I like it here,_ Bucky sent back. Even Wanda had said it was weird that Bucky didn't use emojis in his text messages, made it hard to read his tone; at least with Steve, he didn't have to worry about that. Steve would know he meant the words as reassurance, not argument.

 _I'm glad,_ Steve sent back, proving Bucky's point. _Go to sleep._

That didn't require a reply. Bucky was slipping his phone back into his pocket when he heard a floorboard creak behind him. Bucky's brain reminded him of Clint a moment before he reached for a weapon he didn't carry, prompted by having just texted with Steve, fixing himself firmly in the moment, and so he managed to stay seated and mostly relaxed as Clint moved to sit next to him.

Unlike Bucky, he was still wearing just the T-shirt and boxers he'd gone to bed in; also unlike Bucky, the cool breeze didn't seem to bother him, though he still cuddled in close on Bucky's right side, sliding their hands together when Bucky offered his. 

He didn't say anything, and the quiet, the dark, Clint right there and Steve only a text message away, was almost enough for Bucky to feel like he might sleep. He let the shadows in front of him slip out of focus, concentrating on his breathing and Clint's warmth next to him, and felt himself start to slide into the hazy headspace that was almost as good as actual sleep.

Clint must have noticed, because when he spoke, it was very soft, pitched for super-soldier hearing, and not for Clint's own less than stellar hearing. "Is it weird, being here without him?"

Bucky did him the credit of actually thinking about his answer and ended up slowly saying, "Yes, but not as much as I thought." Clint made a small, questioning sound. "I didn't ever expect that we'd be in the same place, after. Even in Wakanda, unless he wanted to give up being Captain America for good."

"You didn't think he would?"

"Maybe if I'd asked. He's not ready yet."

"And when he is?"

Bucky shook his head. He couldn't imagine that, not really; Steve had always wanted to fight, to stick up for people who couldn't. Bucky didn't even know who Steve would be without that, and he didn't think Steve had any better idea. Steve hadn't ever really expected to make it to his thirties, and then it had been the war, and then he'd gone down with the Valkyrie. Even now, Bucky didn't think Steve really expected to make it to forty; asking him to imagine that and to think about giving up Captain America was too much. "I don't think he's really a farm guy."

"He's not," Clint agreed, laughing a little. Bucky always forgot that the Avengers had been to the farm, back when Bucky was successfully hiding out in Eastern Europe. "It'd be okay, though," Clint added, very serious. "If he wanted to come here, or you wanted to go to him. I wouldn't – I know he'll always be important. More important."

Bucky felt himself go very still, gripped with the weird fear that came with not being able to fully interpret an inter-personal situation. "You know he and I were never – it was never like that between us."

"I know." Clint squeezed his hand but didn't look at him. "But you two have a lot of history, and that's always going to be there. I wouldn't do anything to get in the way of that."

"We're together though, right?" Bucky asked, the words coming out a little thread with a fear he couldn't quite tamp down. He and Clint hadn't exactly sat down and talked it out, and Clint had made the offer of the farm to everyone, but Bucky had thought they at least agreed that there was something between them, more than just sex and friendship and the bond from having their will taken away from them. 

"Of course," Clint said, too quick for Bucky to doubt him. "Of course, yes. I wouldn't have let anyone else share my bed, you know." He said it half like a joke, but half like he was glad to have it confirmed as well, and some of the fear gripping Bucky eased. "I just meant – I know Steve's your most important person. I'm saying that's okay."

"I don't know what that means," Bucky admitted. "I mean, I don't know what you're trying to tell me."

Clint took a deep breath and blew it out heavily. "After the army-" He hesitated, and Bucky wasn't sure where this was going, but was willing to hold Clint's hand and wait it out. "There was a woman, Laura. It was really good, but she got the kind of job offer you don't turn down, and she asked me to go with her. I was –" Another deep breath – "Messed up. The army, and leaving the army, and SHIELD wasn't exactly warm and cuddly. She was talking about moving in together, and all I could think about was when she realized she could do better than me, and I'd be all alone with no job and – I panicked, so she went without me."

"I'm sorry," Bucky said softly.

"And then the next two guys I was with both turned out to be Hydra," Clint added, like it was nothing. "Sam dropped one off a building, though, and the other one blew himself up trying to kill Steve."

"I'm sorry," Bucky said again, not sure what else to say. He knew Rumlow, of course, and he'd heard about him with SHIELD from Steve, but he couldn't imagine Clint with him. Didn't like to imagine Clint with him, knowing what he knew of Rumlow from his time with Hydra.

"Thanks," Clint said quietly. "But my point is – you're not going to turn out to be secretly evil, or leave me because I'm a messed up fool who doesn't know a good thing when he's in it… Steve's important to you; that's an easy thing to bear, Bucky."

Bucky was still holding tight to his hand, the two of them pressed close in the dark. "I love you," he said, not quite expecting the words to come out.

"That wasn't what I expected you to say," Clint said, sounding a little stunned.

"But?" Bucky could feel a smile creeping onto his own face, and knew he'd see it on Clint's as well, if it wasn't too dark. 

"But maybe I do too," Clint said, the smile clear in his voice, and just for that one moment, holding Clint's hand in the dark, Steve only a phone call away, Bucky actually felt safe.


End file.
